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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

It's Getting Hot in Hurr: Burn Trauma in Horror.

I got burned one time. Yeah that's right and I'm not afraid to admit it. It happened one night when I was home alone. I poured some hot kettle water into a Cup of Noodles and brought it over to the recliner where I waited patiently for the minute to be up. One minute later, I pulled up the top and inhaled the luscious smell only a Nissan Cup o Noodles can bring-when suddenly! My napkin fell to the floor and I reached down to pick it up. My delicious dinner spilled all over my thigh and I yelled in pain. Writhing on the floor and pleading for my two dogs to help yielded little to no results, so I called in Emmy Doomas who was luckily babysitting down the street. Emmy took the baby and ran, although there was little to be done at this point. Yes, sadly....my leg had to be amputated.

JUST KIDDING. But my top layer of skin did get pulled off thanks to my ingenious idea of putting on a pair of pants before I went to bed that night. So you see---we all have our burn stories and we all have our scars. Luckily for me I had no scar because it was treated but unfortunately for those of us that get killed or happen to be the targets of cruel jokes, we don't have that luxury. So I bring you some of the greatest moments of burn induced trauma from some of our favorite movies. And as a special treat, Fred Krueger has come out to give us a little insight into good burns and bad.

Burn Victim: Peggy, Blood and Black Lace

Diagnosis: DEATH by Hot Furnace

Peggy was in trouble from the start, due to the fact that she told her killer that she had burned the sacred diary in the fireplace. The killer was so angry that he decided to let Peggy know what it feels like to be burned. He slowly tortured her by pressing her face into the steaming hot furnace. Have you ever touched a hot furnace by accident? Yowzers!

Hot babe, boring burn trauma.

I agree, while the burn is painful it is still confined to one side of Peggy's face which leaves little for excellence in the burn trauma department.

Burn Victim: Amanda Righetti, Deep Red.

Diagnosis: DROWNED in Hot Bathtub Water.

I suppose Amanda didn't really have it easy as she was stabbed in the spine prior to her drowning experience. After being stabbed, she is dragged to a tub filled nicely by our gloved killer with steaming hot bath water.

Drowning must really suck--but drowning while simultaneously having your face melted off due to hot water? No thanks.

Should have been naked.

While I don't think Amanda necessarily needs to be naked, I do sometimes think that because our tap water can get hot, but not ridiculously hot--we may have been missing out on some better burn trauma here. A problem solved by our next burn trauma victim, which now that I think of it, could have been a nice homage to Deep Red.

Burn Victim: Halloween II

Diagnosis: DROWNED in Scalding Hydrotherapy Tub.

Like I said, Although Deep Red may be the better movie, Halloween II's burn trauma is a little better here. Michael uses his smarts to turn up the hydrotherapy tub to alarming levels. After pretending to be slutty nurse Karen's lover boy and getting his fingers sucked, Michael forces slutty nurse Karen's head deep into the water. After witnessing several moments of dunking and more and more skin hanging off with each dunk, we are overcome by the amount of trauma!

Boobs.

Yes, well....aside from boobs, this burn trauma was really well done. It is quite nauseating to see bits of skin hanging off from the face after only a few moments submerged in this boiling water. Bleck!

Burn Victim: Bob Carter, The Hills Have Eyes

Diagnosis: Burnt to a Crisp.

There was never much hope for Bob Carter, who was used merely as a distraction so that Pluto could get his rape on. Unfortunately for him, his character gets this treatment in both the original AND the remake! Those pesky hill people.

Too much flame!!

Fred is right--when there is too much flame involved we leave little to be desired in terms of satisfactory burn trauma. Here, his body is scorched and black and probably very stinky. Fail, fail fail!

Burn Victim: Cropsy, The Burning.

Diagnosis: ANGER

Poor Cropsy was just a lowly janitor at a crappy summer camp when he becomes the victim of a very stupid prank. Read all about it here. After being set ablaze by some pesky candles in a rotting skull, Cropsy becomes the ultimate in burn trauma victims.

He'll never have my heart.

This is actually true because although Cropsy's burns rival Freddy's, he doesn't talk and instead bottles up his anger and takes it out on poor prostitutes! Plus he doesn't talk or have Freddy's sass. Although judging by the extent of the burn trauma, I'm not sure talking is really possible...Hmm while it is one of the more traumatic burn victims--and one of few who lives to tell the tale, Cropsy is sadly just kind of boring!

Well there you have it. I wish Freddy was a little more helpful in his burn commentary but what can you do? Yes, there are a lot more great burn traumas to be named but I just don't have the time! Feel free to list your favorite moments and then we can talk about them. Also, feel free to share your personal burn stories--physical AND emotional burns are welcome.

HC- Frontier(s) boiler room was on the list until the last minute. I decided although it was gross--it looked suddenly very fakely done. But I did capture a screen shot, and get all skeeved out when he puts his hand to the glass, and his hand is all sticky and bloody. Bleck!

Lost fingerprints!! You're like John Doe in Se7en....you can committ crimes and no one would know.

I've never seen RoboCop, but I did ponder a few other "melting" cases--even the Wicked Witch, which would have been neat since she DID get burned in real life. But then I decided to stick to burns that created gross, burn scars so that ruled some of those out.

Harry in Home Alone had a pretty bad case of the burns- first getting his hand scalded on the super-hot doorknob and having an "M" seared into his hand for life, and then getting the top of his head set on fire, YIKES!!

I've never been badly burned, just some small stuff from the stove and oven, BUT I did have a really close call once when I poured oil into a super-hot pan (because a recipe told me to!!), which then proceeded to light on fire, which caused me to panic and put the pan under the water which was the exact opposite of what I should have done, as it made the pan that I was holding burst into a large fireball which was inches from my face. It ended up getting my kitchen a bit smoky, the walls a bit charred, and melted a bit of my floor, but by some miracle, the flame did not touch me. If it had I probably would have wound up looking like Cropsey!

Emily C- Yikes! That's one of my fears, forgetting the proper way to extinguish--it's so tricky these days! Electrical, grease..I'll probably kill myself one way or another! And yes to Le Femme... i knew I was envisioning a woman on fire but I could not for the life of me put my finger on it.

Matango ahhhhhh Sleepaway Camp! How could I forget. I'm so mad I forgot about that one. Biggest pot of boiling water eva.